


in defence of Sakuno

by arysthaeniru



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sakuno is shy. It is one character trait that confines her completely and for some, is her only trait. She hides from attention, she’s overly clumsy to the point of injury, she has no sense of direction and most of all, she has the problematic aspect of being a teenage girl who is trying to figure out who she is, while dealing with people better than her in every direction.</p><p>So let's not bash her. Let’s talk about Sakuno as a strong female character, whose spotlight is not in tennis, but in her quiet steel beyond that. Sakuno is shy, but she is more than that. She’s human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in defence of Sakuno

Sakuno is shy. It is one character trait that confines her completely and for some, is her only trait. She hides from attention, she’s overly clumsy to the point of injury, she has no sense of direction and most of all, she has the problematic aspect of being a teenage girl who is trying to figure out who she is, while dealing with people better than her in every direction.

But there is Dan, who is also shy, to the point of being clumsy and surrounded by those better than him, and his sole trait is not shy. He’s cute, adorable and practically stalks the people he thinks are interesting. He is an interesting character. Sakuno is bland and too weak.

Let’s talk about the loyalty of Sakuno rolling out over a hundred good-luck slips of paper for Ryoma. Let’s talk about her quiet skill in tennis, which is very impressive considering she picked up the sport for probably the first time when she came to Seigaku. Let’s talk about her cooking skill and generousity, to the point where she makes food for all of the Regulars, whom she only rarely interacts with. Let’s talk about how she doesn’t feel the need to stalk Ryoma even though she likes him, because she knows he needs space. Let’s talk about how she is not obtrusive in her cheering, and yet manages to lend her caring nature and support to the team. Let’s talk about how she takes in critical advice about her knees and wobbly hips, but always rebuffs and ignores Ryoma’s comments about her hair, because she likes her own hair.

Let’s talk about Sakuno as a strong female character, whose spotlight is not in tennis, but in her quiet steel beyond that. Sakuno is shy, but she is more than that. She’s human.

-

Sakuno was born the 14th of January, as a small, underweight screaming lump of flesh. She was a preemie however, which meant that she was kept in a small glass incubator for at least three weeks before her mother could take her home and clutch the small babe to her chest. Weak from birth, Sakuno had thought wryly, honestly. It was as if the world had been against her from the start.

Still, Sakuno was born to two loving parents: Rei Ryuuzaki, one of the world’s most famous badminton champions, and Nagino Ryuuzaki, his doting and beautiful wife. Sakuno didn’t remember much from her infancy, but she had seen the pictures of her own slightly pale face and her tufts of thick brown hair, long even from a young age. She looked like her father, with her pale skin and her brown hair, but she had her mother’s bright, wide eyes, and her grandma’s slightly inturned ears. She was always told that she had gained her parents’ best traits lookswise (but people turned away usually, when talking about her personality, and that spoke volumes).

She must have been happy then. Sakuno could barely remember what she ate for breakfast the day before, however, so the memories of the past were little more than imposed thoughts from curling up in her attic on the days she screwed up badly, just to stare at the face of her mother and father, relaxed and young and happy.

It didn’t last for long. Sakuno’s mother died when Sakuno was turning five, and the small, stable world of the Ryuuzakis had crashed down around them. At least, her father’s world had collapsed. Sakuno’s had merely changed.

She didn’t remember her mother. Her mother wasn’t a smell, or a lullaby or even a laugh. Her mother was just a face in an image and a few letters and scribbled notes from a box in the attic. Sakuno never knew her mother, so it didn’t sadden her so much to know that she was gone.

She wondered sometimes, as she waited in her grandma’s office afterschool when her grandma finished up paperwork and oversaw tennis practise, whether things would have been different in her life if she’d had a mother, but they were little more than idle musings, when she was bored. She loved her grandmother and, besides, Sakuno couldn’t turn back time, so there was no time thinking about it.

The fact was, however, as paltry a loss it had been Sakuno, it had broken her father, and he had been unable to look at Sakuno the same. He drowned himself in badminton tournaments and Sakuno was sent to live with her grandmother, who sighed to herself a lot about two young men who dealt with children very differently.

(It wasn’t until a lot later that Sakuno realized that her grandmother was referring to Echizen Nanjirou’s retirement to look after Ryoma-kun. Personally, Sakuno thought it would have been a bigger gesture if he’d retired when he’d created Ryoga-san, but at least he’d tried with Ryoma-kun.)

Her father became more of an uncle who came in every now and then to give her presents, kiss her and leave. Sakuno was instead raised by her grandmother, who was a very formidable woman. She loved Sakuno, no doubt, but she had forgotten how to deal with children who lived with her, instead of her students. She was often too harsh and was too kind afterwards to make up for her mishap, and as a result, a confused Sakuno grew up quiet and small and overly polite. It wasn’t entirely her grandmother’s fault, especially as her grandmother got better and better with dealing with Sakuno and encouraging her, but it was a big part of why Sakuno rarely spoke to anybody she didn’t know well.

Whenever her grandmother shouted, Sakuno always found herself up in the attic, flicking through the pictures of her father and mother when they were younger, and watching small, grainy home-videos of her mother playing with her, and her father swinging her around, and celebrating with their friends.

Once she was old enough to read, her time in the attic became longer as she read over her mother’s journal, running over the unfamiliar words, or the smudged sentences in the letters and notes. Her mother had once written that she wanted her hair to trail to the floor, to be pretty and fun, and from then, a young Sakuno had been determined to grow out her hair, no matter what anyone said.

Her grandmother had always supported the decisions that Sakuno made for herself, like the lessons she chose to take, or the length of her hair and the clothes she liked to wear. Sakuno was so rarely vehement about many things, preferring to fight for things that were actually precious. Surrounded by strong people with strong personalities, Sakuno learnt to retreat when an issue wasn’t important to her, like what food she ate, where she had her bedroom and what toys she got.

It was a pragmatism and ability to let things go that followed Sakuno into her later life, and made her so likeable, but it was a little comfort for the young Sakuno with next-to-no-friends.

It wasn’t for lack of the other students trying, but Sakuno always wanted to work when the teacher told them to work, and in playtime, she never quite knew how to get involved with the long, tiresome games of tag. Which meant she hung around and watched instead of played, and never really got involved.

As Sakuno grew a little older, this loneliness transferred into reading lots of books on the playground and people screamed and ran around the ground, doing gymnastics and acrobatics that Sakuno didn’t even want to try to attempt. She remembered how much her grandmother had always shouted at her tennis team for being too reckless with throwing themselves around everywhere, and Sakuno had no desire to be yelled at by her grandmother for any scrapes on herself or any damage done to her clothes.

Sometimes, Sakuno thought it would be fun to just run around and be wild, but she was always reminded of why she was cautious, when someone tripped over and collided into a wall and knocked out a tooth, after chasing each other without looking, and Sakuno always returned to her world of books.

In that world, people always had friends, magic adventures fell out of the sky and hope and love could surpass everything. Sakuno loved those ideals, held them close to her heart like little, sprouting wishes, but at the same time, she rarely let them affect her perspective of real life. There was never going to be a dragon in her life, or a magic tree or even a mysterious man in her life, and Sakuno was content with her slightly solitary lifestyle, even if she did sometimes wish for more.

And then Tomo flew into her life, like a whirlwind of energy and life, the year before middle school. A new girl from another school from another part of the country and everyone wanted to be her friend initially. But she was loud and spoke too harshly and got easily angered by people, and soon nobody _really_ wanted to be her friend, especially when she slapped people for teasing anyone. Still, Sakuno had never seen anyone like Tomo, and she’d stared probably a little too long during class time, because one lunchtime, Tomo sat next to her, and just like that, they became solid friends.

Tomo was almost Sakuno’s entire opposite. Where Sakuno dreamt of being like Princess Kaguya, the moon princess who sacrificed herself selflessly for her family and who outwitted her opponents in subtle manner; Tomo dreamt of being like princess Monoke, fighting off demons with her sword of justice and taking back what was hers with her energy and willpower. It was something that Sakuno could barely fathom, but Tomo never attempted to push her own thinking onto Sakuno, which was something that Sakuno would love about Tomo until the day she died.

For all of Tomo’s brashfulness and willingness to beat people up to get to her goal, she would never try to change anyone’s opinion about things, unless they were hurting someone.

It was what defined their relationship as they got older and Sakuno grew into a more mature young girl. It was what made Sakuno just smile when people asked her how she and Tomo stood each other without exploding. Tomo brought Sakuno out of her shell, and in return. Sakuno tamed down Tomo’s willfulness. It wasn’t easy being Tomo’s friend, but it wasn’t because of their personalities.

No, it was often more about Tomo’s talents. For all of Sakuno’s hard work and determination, she was only ever mediocre at most things. Not a master of words, not a good public speaker, not great at maths, too clumsy for sports, too rigid for art, too shy for dance. There were very few things that Sakuno was good at, like History, Geography and Cooking. But it was difficult to be friends with someone like Tomo who only had to put a fraction of Sakuno’s hard work into whatever she did and excelled in it.

Tomo was great at public speaking, after just skimming through the how-to book that her grandma had gotten, after Sakuno had come home crying about the class presentation that she had failed because she’d frozen up. Tomo’s art skills were amazing, after just watching one episode of the series of videos about how to improve your artwork, that Sakuno had slogged through for a whole month. Tomo was great at maths, despite not paying attention in class for the most part and studying only two hours before the test, unlike Sakuno who’d had her study-guide planned out three weeks in advance.

It was sobering and difficult to be Tomo’s friend when she was so much better at whatever pursuits she wanted to do with you. Still, Sakuno could never really feel more than a few pangs of envy, Tomo was too nice about it. She was always offering to help Sakuno when she wasn’t babysitting, and she never bragged about her talents, not unless she was being ironic or trying to make Sakuno laugh.

It was this tone of new friendship and the small blossomings of confidence that led Sakuno to where she was before starting middle school.

Despite Sakuno’s grandmother being a tennis coach and her own father a badminton player, Sakuno had never been particularly good or particularly interested in tennis. She’d always thought that she was too young, too plain, too unassuming to be able to make it. But Ryoma-kun had changed that view and had started her new love affair with tennis, after just watching one match.

He didn’t remember her name for a long time, but that was okay, because it was only ever the idea of Ryoma-kun that initially inspired her to pick up a racket and try out for the girls tennis team. Her grandmother had been bemused but not displeased by Sakuno’s attempts. And sure, she wasn’t a regular, but she started learning the principles and trying really hard. And somehow, when it came to tennis, it didn’t seem to matter that Tomo was still better than her with little practise, because Sakuno had a passion she hadn’t realized before.

She spent a lot of time practising against walls, practising her footwork while waiting in the line to buy groceries, doing arm swings in her room while reading her homework, and it was a sort of inspired that Sakuno hadn’t really felt before, not with anything else except cooking.

But it was quickly dashed. Not by the girls tennis team who were nothing but accepting of Sakuno and kind to teach her but by the shining talent of the boys team. It was difficult to try and aim for the best, when the best were practising on the courts opposite from you, going ‘hoi-hoi’ and ‘yudan sezu ni ikou’ with little care for their surroundings.

Sakuno was not as interested in Ryoma-kun’s looks and personality, not like Tomo-chan who’d labeled herself fanclub president upon seeing his face. She was interested in the idea of Ryoma, of a rookie being able to prove the world wrong and not let anyone down, and have the confidence that she’d never had. In a way, Ryoma became a real-life literary character whom she followed and attempted to mimic (with admittedly, little success).

It became natural to go and watch the boy’s practice after the girl’s practises had finished. She needed to wait for her grandmother anyway, and it was a good way to see exactly how far she had to go and what she had to emulate. The grace of Fuji-senpai’s Triple Counters, the power and confidence of Momo-senpai’s Dunk Smash, the duality and awareness of the Golden Pair, the sheer determination of Kaidou-senpai, the intelligence of Inui-senpai and the discipline of Tezuka-senpai. And somehow, Ryoma-kun was all of them combined.

And that was why she liked him, and blushed a little when he was around and corrected her form, with the boredom of someone who cared little for the little people around him. He was the literary heroes personified, perfection in one being. All the adventure of the books that Sakuno had never dreamt of actually happening, were there in Ryoma-kun; in the angle of his cap, the smirk on his lips and the trademark catchphrase as he watched his opponent self-destruct.

It wasn’t until later on, after his first injury at a proper game that she started to see him as slightly human and prone to flaws and stupidity. A stupid young boy, fighting for a goal that he chased after, without thought to the consequences. In Ryoma-kun’s mind, there were most likely none of the long soliloquies of determination to seek adventure, mingled with the bitter struggles of duty and the long-term effects of his actions. Ryoma-kun thought only about tennis and to him, everything else was secondary. And that was when Sakuno stopped idolizing him.

It helped that it was around the time that she and Tomo became the unofficial cheerleaders for Seigaku, and that she ended up spending a lot of time with them at tournaments. She’d never done that before for any other of the boys teams her grandmother had coached, and her grandmother loved to tease about grandchildren with Ryoma-kun, but Sakuno wasn’t chasing Ryoma-kun, she was chasing what he represented.

And along the way came friends with the other tennis-team non-regulars, like Katsuo and Kato, and even friends among the senpai, like Fuji-senpai who loved her cooking, despite it not being spicy and Taka-senpai who was always cheerful to hear her quiet support, and Kikumaru-senpai who laughed every time that Sakuno tripped and lent her a couple of bandages and Oishi-senpai who always noticed and made sure to help her put them on. Or even Kaidou-senpai, who bought her and Tomo bottles of water when he went away from the matches, looking a little bashful, and Inui-senpai who was always happy to explain what was happening in every match to help Sakuno’s understanding of terms of tennis and Tezuka-senpai, who was quietly supportive of their role and quietly accepted Sakuno’s bentos with a humility that few other leaders had.

It was a nice thing. None of what she’d been expecting. What she’d wanted was Ryoma-kun’s drive and talent to rub off on her. Instead, she became a part of Ryoma-kun’s life. Slowly along the way, she thought that Ryoma-kun stopped seeing her as some dispensable fan who cared only about his fame. He began to see her as someone with the same goal who wasn’t as far along as he and was taking a different path to get there, a path that couldn’t interfere with Ryoma at all.

And along the way, she stopped seeing Ryoma-kun as the dashing hero from the books, and more as a socially-awkward boy with a lot of talent and a kindness about him despite his cutting sense of humour. She started seeing Ryoma-kun for whom he really was, and that was maybe when she became warmer and started to open up to him more.

Seeing him off at airports when he left to go places, buying him presents, making him food, sending him texts about the tennis accomplishments she’d had, buying him little good-luck slips from the temple to try and encourage him. Despite some of these being clumsy and not always received well, it slowly made a difference. She and Ryoma-kun slowly became closer to each other, as people instead of stereotypes.

It was a different sort of friendship to the impulsive friendship of Tomo and Sakuno, where they had instantly clicked and would remain attuned to each other for life, even if they didn’t talk to each other for years on end. Her friendship with Ryoma-kun was a careful one, watered cautiously by each side, built up slowly over time, until they had a mutual respect for each other. It was a friendship of two people who didn’t easily open up to each other, and it was worth the effort, really.

And then the tennis season ended and Ryoma returned to America, and Sakuno was left in Japan, with ideas and inspiration and a hole in her schedule where Ryoma and the tennis team had been. The adventure was over, the book ended and the deal was done and the shiny sparkly life that Sakuno had lived with the Seigaku Tennis Team was over.

She could have sulked. She could have gotten depressed and thought she’d hit her peak. It was what Tomo had expected and what some of the other senpai had expected but her grandmother had just smiled at Sakuno, warmly because she knew that Sakuno was stronger than that.

There was a hole where Ryoma-kun had been, yes, but she filled that hole with letters and cooking and extra practice for tennis. While Ryoma-kun was gone, she was going to surpass his expectations, so she and he could maybe stand as equals one day.

And maybe one day, they would catch eyes with each other, as the men and women’s finals exchanged courts, behind the stadium, where their managers were trying to usher them away to the dressing rooms. It would be an understanding glance. It would be a glance of ‘wasn’t that good, didn’t you see me, i’m probably going to win this, watch me’. And maybe, after they won, they would go out for dinner, or maybe they wouldn’t, because Ryoma was a busy man, but either way, that was Sakuno’s dream.

That was Sakuno’s motivation. And she was determined to see it through, critics or not.


End file.
